News

Hearing What You See

Hearing What You See

A recent gif image has been circulating where individual can report hearing a “thud” sound with the image, despite there being no sound. The convergence of visual and auditory events is not new and researchers believe that the visually-evoked auditory responses (VEAR) are more common than previously thought.

Other types of synaesthesias are estimated to have an overall prevalence of 4.4 percent; however, recent work published in the journal Cortex estimated the prevalence of VEAR to 21 percent. To do so the researchers carried out a large-scale online study (n=4128) with a survey that included 24 silent video clips similar to the "thud gif.” They observed that those reporting “yes” to hearing sounds were more likely to report tinnitus or musical imagery.